


Euphoria

by ASockAndEt



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Death, Drugs, Female Protagonist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:48:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29234034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ASockAndEt/pseuds/ASockAndEt
Summary: A short story including drugs, a medical student, and an accident."A young woman struggles to keep moving."





	Euphoria

I sit in this dingy, dusty, and moldy room of a broken-down motel. I sit here in an oversized, black hoodie with the hood pulled as far over my face as I can. I sit in the small space between the bed and the wall with my heart drowning in the tears it has cried for the past twenty-one years. My hands shake cold with the dread that has pooled at the bottom of my stomach for just as long. I hold a needle in one hand and a vial in the other. I hold a miracle that will turn my fears into euphoria. Every time I come to this point, I'm always indecisive but...

I stick the needle in my arm.

I breathe in......

and can't help the smile that stretches from ear to ear. As always, I force it into a smaller, more presentable smile.

I stand, picking up the bag of Euphoria, and stride out of the dust and mold of the room into the dark and dank corridors of the motel. I'm sure other people are here, drowning in and away their fears too. Are they addicted? Or are they like me?

I hurry along because if _I_ feel like I can keep going, then just how powerful do other people feel?

The elevator I took up is just down the corridor. I stride forward with easy, quick steps, my head held high and an eternal smile tugging at the corners of my lips. My heart is racing and I know my eyes are a little too wide with glee but that doesn't matter. Because no one will approach me, no matter which me I am.

When I reach the elevator, I push the button to call it down (it must have just dropped off someone above) and I wait patiently. I know the motel is old and falling apart, the wooden floors threatening to break with every step and all the hinges squeaking with every swing, but I take the elevator every time anyways. Though I always cower in the corner, hoping (and not hoping) that the metal box I'm trapped in doesn't just plummet.

But I am a different me now, a euphoric me, and she folds her arms, glances down the corridor to see no one, and looks back at the doors that are just sliding open. I start to step forward but hesitate when my eyes meet with the emptiness of an elevator shaft. Then I hear screeching.

The screeching of metal against metal as the elevator plummets before my eyes. And the cackling screeching of an older man as he plummets with it. When that metal box passes my floor, I briefly meet his eyes.

His scrunched up, euphoric eyes.

Then below, there's a crashing sound. I fall to my knees, shaking. I cover my face with my hands and I know I look just like him. Eyes scrunched up in euphoria, my smile ear to ear again. But I don't giggle.

As always, I force my face into a presentable state and force myself onto my feet.

Fortunately, and unfortunately, I wasn't in the elevator but now I'll have to take the stairs.

Despite being run-down, this motel has a whole seven floors. Back then, it used to be prosperous and busy. But ever since the city fell down in the economic downturn that seized the country, this district I'm in now has totally fallen into chaos.

But in that aspect, this motel is still prosperous and busy. It just runs a different business. And usually I would be too afraid to even come near this place, but what cop would waste their time here? This district isn't just tolerated- it's ignored. Everyone might judge everyone else here but no one wastes their time chit-chatting.

So, with my situation, there is every reason to come here.

Almost painfully, I happened to choose a room seven floors up (the lucky number). I have a long walk down. When I hit floor four, I find myself thinking, "Oh, isn't four an unlucky number in some countries?"

There's a young man sewing up mice in the stairwell. He wears a surgical mask that surely hides his ear-to-ear smile but fails to hide eyes narrowed into crescents. His hands hardly shake as he expertly weaves thread across the smooth, thin lines running down the mice's stomachs.

A surgeon?

He looks up when my footsteps stop dead. Somehow, his aura lights up incredibly upon seeing me and I imagine that, even if he wasn't on Euphoria, he's probably, ordinarily, already an optimistic and refreshing kind of guy. He looks back down and quickly snip away the remaining thread.

Then, he stands up and says, "Hey, I'm just a student but would you let me practice on you? I promise I'm at the top of my class!!"

Oh no, a medical student.

I turn into the doorway of the fourth floor and run through the hallways, heading for the stairs on the other side of the building. When I first came here, I made sure to get a thorough understanding of the building. I've never regretted it.

Behind me, I hear his footsteps pounding behind me. I imagine he's probably waving his scalpel and shouting something too but I can't hear anything above the pounding of my heartbeat sending blood and euphoria up to my brain.

I round a corner, dodge around a table and a vase with some dead flowers drooping down the sides, and hit the door to the stairs. As fast as I try to fly down them, the medical student is far taller than me and he seems to have taken more Euphoria...

Soon enough he catches up to me on the landing of the third floor. I dodge left- away from his outstretched hand and nearly fall into the hallway, briefly catching him by surprise. If I can make it to any table with a vase, maybe I could throw one to buy some extra time......

I sprint down the hallway and see an empty table with pieces of porcelain scattered around its legs. I start to curse but then settle for just throwing the whole table instead. I figure the adrenaline and the euphoria feeding into my veins would probably allow me that at least.

Just when I reach it, just when my hands grasp the wood, just when I whip around to throw the cabinet, I hear wood cracking. And I'm just in time to see the medical student open his mouth in surprise before he falls through the suddenly huge hole in the floor.

_THUD_

For a few moments, I'm stuck in place. Breathing hard with the table still lifted up, I stand there like an idiot. Then, slowly, I put it on the floor back in place and walk over to the hole. Down below, the young man is crumpled on the floor, one leg twisted horribly and his surprised, smiling face looking up. The scalpel is grasped tightly in his right hand.

It occurs to me that, even though there must be many people here, I never once screamed out for help.

My legs give out and my butt lands hard on the floor. I look down at the young man, wondering if I'm imagining the pool of blood spreading out from his head or the twitch of the fingers of his right hand. My mouth hangs open and I feel like screaming. There is a mad rush of thoughts clouding my head, running across my vision vividly and these thoughts want to scream-

_I shouldn't be here-_

_If I wasn't a loser-_

_If I could be somebody-_

_Stupid, selfish, a waste of space-_

_That should be me!_

-and roaring laughter escapes my throat. Forcefully, I throw my head back at the euphoria that explodes in my veins, lights up my brain, and makes me laugh the loudest I have laughed in years. It's made me the happiest I've been in years.

The laughter is cackling, unbridled and high-pitched, the sound of someone who is _happy they're alive_ , and it slowly dies out in hiccups and gasps. I double over, sides aching, and place my hands on the floor.

"Ha ha- haha..."

I curl up and my laughs sound a bit like sobs.

And later, as I walk towards the exit, I glance around the reception room. My eyes sweep past the old woman who sits behind a box-office-looking room, locked behind her bulletproof glass and adjacent brick walls. They catch the familiar look of pity in the wrinkles of her eyes, the "woe is her" written on down-turned lips, and immediately the uncertainty dies in my heart.

Because what can other people's pity do? How can it fill my stomach, make me go to work, motivate me to attend every class, encourage me to finish every assignment, or convince me to go to bed every night just to wake up and do everything all over again? How can another person's pity keep me sane? Keep me healthy? Make me happy?

I walk out of a dingy, dusty, and broken-down motel with a bag of Euphoria in hand. The smile on my lips threatens to tug wider with every step. As always, I make myself look presentable and force myself to keep walking.


End file.
